The Wisdom Wonder Project has produced teaching videos for the Standards Editions* of Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics and Primary Mathematics: Level 1 and Level 2 courses published by Singapore Math. (Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics can also be used with pre-kindergarten students.) The Wisdom Wonder Project plans to eventually produce videos for the rest of Singapore Math's Primary Mathematics courses, with Level 3 due in the fall of 2022. You will need to purchase the textbooks and activity books for these courses on your own.
[*The Standards Editions were written to meet the 2006 Mathematics Contents Standards for California Public Schools.]
Your subscription gives you access to all of the online videos that accompany all of these Singapore Math courses as well as the PDF files that you will need. You might have more than one child using one or both courses for the same cost!
Mrs. Amy Houser is the teacher for the first two courses. She is warm, friendly, and encouraging. In the kindergarten course, Houser and one of her stuffed-animal friends welcome children and introduce a topic, then Houser walks them through the lesson using lots of demonstrations as well as activities with hands-on objects such as teddy bear counters, origami paper, coins, linked cubes, and templates from a PDF file. Houser teaches first graders in the same fashion but without her stuffed-animal friends. Lisa Ann Dillon teaches Levels 2 and 3 in a similarly friendly and engaging manner by using objects to demonstrate concepts while students follow along using their own manipulatives.
You will use quite a few hands-on resources, so you should plan ahead to have everything you need available for each lesson. Required items are listed lesson by lesson in the PDF user’s guide for each course. Some items, like craft beads and pattern blocks, have links to Amazon in case you want to order them.
The template file for each course has pages that will need to be printed out, such as those with ten frames, a hundred chart, and pages showing each number as both a numeral and a written word. Most of the pages for kindergarten should be laminated for durability since they will be used repeatedly throughout the course. The first-grade course includes flashcards along with other templates.
The 140 Wisdom Wonder videos for kindergarten run an average of about 10 minutes each (ranging from about 7 to 20 minutes). For Level 1, there are 112 videos averaging 10 to 12 minutes each, and Level 2 has 110 videos that each run 10 to 15 minutes.
The videos are designed to be used directly with children. While you don’t need to prepare lessons other than having the required resources on hand, you need to watch the video with your child and pause it from time to time for discussion or a hands-on activity.
These lessons teach each concept thoroughly and slowly. The repetition might seem tedious to parents, but for children it helps build a solid foundation of understanding. Note that the kindergarten lessons are simple enough that an older sibling might be able to do the lessons with a kindergartner. All levels include optional assessment quizzes that help parents know whether a child has mastered the material well enough to move on to the next level.
You can view free sample videos from all of the courses on YouTube® to see how the lessons are presented.
Summary
I expect that many parents who love Singapore’s math curriculum will appreciate having this teaching assistance.
